Is it Right for My Business?

Nextiva is commonly known as the go-to business cloud communications platform. It’s versatile and reliable, and its customer service teams are top-notch.

The platform brings a broad set of features for team collaboration, customer communication and contact management — all easily accessible through a unified dashboard. Plus, Nextiva comes with excellent automation and analytics features.

Nextiva’s pricing

Nextiva currently includes two products in its main offering: one for business communication and one for sales, service and support teams. Each of these products has its own separate pricing structures.

Nextiva Customer Conversation Suite

• Essential: Starting at $28.95 per user per month.
• Professional: Starting at $32.95 per user per month.
• Enterprise: Starting at $442.95 per user per month.

Nextiva’s Customer Conversation solution is made for companies that want a straightforward VoIP platform to unify customer communication across voice, video and text.

Nextiva Customer Experience Suite

• Essential: Starting at $129 per user per month.
• Professional: Starting at $159 per user per month.
• Premium: Starting at $199 per user per month.

Nextiva’s Customer Experience solution is a solid option for companies seeking to create an omnichannel customer communication portal, complete with chat, email and SMS — though the Core plan only includes one channel.

The Customer Experience solution also offers the features necessary to streamline contact center workflows — like skill-based routing as well as workforce and workflow optimization tools.

Nextiva Brand Management Suite

• Standard: $149 per month + $99 per additional user per month.
• Growth: $299 per month + $99 per additional user per month.
• Enterprise: Custom pricing only.

If you want an easy way to manage reviews, incoming customer service tickets, and social media channels in one place, the Brand Management Suite may work well for you. It includes a centralized inbox, social listening, analytics, custom routing and workflows, automated responses and competitor analytics.

Nextiva’s key features

On the surface, Nextiva is similar to every other business communications platform out there. Here’s a closer look at what makes it unique.

Easy setup

Getting started with Nextiva is a simple process — it’s just a matter of signing up, downloading the app and installing it on your devices just as you would with any other mobile app or computer program. From there, you can configure your account and port over your phone numbers or select new ones within a few clicks via Nextiva’s guided setup.

Nextiva also excels in ease of use, seeing as the NextivaONE app brings all the features agents need under one roof. Customer profiles, team chats and many other communication channels are all quickly accessible without hiding behind complicated menus and sub-menus.

The same story goes for admins. Setting up call flows is highly visual (and therefore easy), and the platform’s analytics are also simple to locate and digest. In any case, if you ever run into trouble, Nextiva’s 24/7 customer service team will have your back.

Business communication platform

Nextiva offers VoIP services for businesses of all sizes. Every plan includes unlimited voice calling, video conferencing, team chat, auto attendants, voicemail transcription and online faxing plus toll-free and local phone numbers at no extra charge.

You can also benefit from call recording, voice analytics and text messaging depending on your plan.

If you need hardware, Nextiva gives you the option to purchase or lease pre-configured VoIP desk, cordless and conference phones, as well as headsets and adapters.

Omnichannel contact center solutions

For businesses that need more power, Nextiva’s customer experience suite centralizes communication channels, powerful routing capabilities, automations and enterprise-grade features (when you’re ready). From simple voice-only deployments to true omnichannel support, there’s something for businesses of all sizes.

Every customer experience plan includes outbound dialers, campaign management, built-in CRM capabilities, automations and workflow builders, and voice or digital bots.

Even at the cheapest tier, you get a ton of power to optimize operations and route calls at high volume.

Higher plans come with workforce management, quality assurance, performance management and agent engagement capabilities. There’s plenty of room to grow.

NextivaONE app

NextivaONE is the app version of Nextiva’s Customer Conversation platform. It includes all the tools necessary for remote agents to hold video, text and voice communications with customers — from any compatible device.

NextivaOne gives agents access to in-depth customer profiles with information from an integrated CRM. It gives them the ability to leave notes next to each contact, so their colleagues have the context necessary for future calls.

The app includes several team collaboration tools. Team members can communicate internally via one-on-one chats, and they can send out and receive both emails and SMS texts directly within the interface.

Additionally, team members can hold group chats as well as video and voice conference calls in the platform’s collaboration rooms, which are complete with file sharing and basic task management functionalities like to-do lists.

Other notable features include meeting scheduling with the option to sync meetings through Microsoft Outlook and Google Workspace, video conference screen sharing, inbound and outbound call history and more.

Automation builder

Nextiva offers a broad selection of automation tools that range from simple to complex. In terms of the basics, the platform allows you to route callers to the appropriate departments via standard or multi-level auto-attendants.

You can set up automatic voicemail-to-email/SMS notifications, enable voicemail transcriptions and send out automated follow-ups to customers — all via a straightforward interface.

Nextiva’s automation tools truly come to life within its AI-powered contact center. Agents can save considerable amounts of time during outbound and inbound calls through automated dialers, dynamic scripting and skill-based routing across all digital channels.

Most notably, Nextiva allows you to set up both speech-enabled IVR and IVA systems. In short:

• IVRs use natural language processing to detect and respond to basic customer inquiries so callers can easily check account balances or have their call routed to a specific department, for instance.
• IVAs take this concept to a new level by leveraging AI to identify customer sentiment, escalate calls to live agents if needed, offer appropriate suggestions based on a customer’s history and pull information from the company’s knowledge base to present to customers.

Another handy feature is the ability to set up call center thresholds. Nextiva will notify agents and supervisors whenever you experience a sudden rise in wait times or call volumes that surpass your set thresholds.

Analytics and reporting

Nextiva’s call analytics are in-depth enough to track metrics like call volumes (whether inbound, outbound or blended), talk times and more. You can see a general overview of these metrics through an easy-to-follow dashboard with graphs and charts, or you can zoom in on the details by viewing the data as tables and logs.

Nextiva allows you to filter your analytics by categories like location, call groups, phone numbers and user activity, with each category having its own sub-filters and customized ways to visualize data.

For instance, you can analyze a specific agent’s activity or select multiple users to measure team performance as a group. Alternatively, you can even select two agents and put them side-by-side to compare their productivity.

Another handy feature is the ability to replay recorded calls through the call logs and leave notes or ratings. You can then leave feedback for agents along with the entire recorded call or a portion of it from directly within the dashboard.

Gamification

Nextiva can encourage friendly competition among employees through easy-to-set-up gamified leaderboards, available in the platform’s analytics dashboard. The leaderboards are highly customizable — you can focus on various metrics, have individual agents or entire teams compete with each other, and pick between a solid selection of leaderboard themes. The data displayed in the leaderboards is updated in real-time.

Call Pop

Nextiva’s Call Pop functionality gives agents all the customer information necessary before picking up the call via a pop-up. This allows them to adjust their tactics on the fly and provide personalized experiences.

This information can include the customer’s account value, last purchase, survey response history, sentiment or any other type of details relevant to your business. Call Pop quickly pulls in customer details from your integrated CRM, giving you more control over what agents need to see.

Once an agent picks up a call, they’ll be able to see the customer’s full profile in NextivaONE, along with notes and recent conversations for further context. Nextiva will also send an automated survey after the call ends, and the subsequent response will be displayed on the agent’s screen the next time the customer calls.

Nextiva pros

• Plug-and-play hardware.
• Make calls from any device.
• You can use existing devices.
• Guided setup and intuitive interface.
• Great customer support.
• Highly reliable and secure.
• Broad product selection.
• Built-in team collaboration.
• Strong integrations.
• Threaded conversations.
• Brand management suite.

Nextiva cons

• Video meetings are capped at 45 minutes.
• Entry-level plan missing texting and multi-level auto attendant.
• No video or voice calling transcriptions on basic plans.
• Premium integrations are only on higher tiers.

Alternatives to Nextiva

Nextiva offers an exceptional balance of ease of use, affordability, price and customer service. The table below shows how it compares to its closest competitors in key areas.

RingCentral

RingCentral offers far more integration and customization options; it has more than 400 APIs and 300 integrations on top of a range of advanced features you won’t find elsewhere. However, it’s harder to set up and use. Plus, RingCentral is overkill for a lot of businesses.

Ooma

If you need traditional desk phones, most providers will work just fine, but Ooma makes the setup process as easy as it gets with pre-configured devices and an incredibly simple phone system. Internal collaboration tools, like video meetings and team chat, are only on higher tiers, but it’s a great option if you need something simple.

Zoom Phone

Zoom Phone offers a unique unlimited international calling add-on plus global plans that work in more than 50 countries. There’s also an affordable pay-as-you-go plan if you don’t need unlimited usage. Overall, it’s a great choice if you’re not in the United States or handle a high volume of international calls.

CallHippo

If you’re a super small business on a tight budget or you rarely handle calls, CallHippo offers a lot of features at an affordable price. It is also one of the few providers to offer a standalone dialer if that’s all you need.

Methodology

I tested Nextiva based on the following criteria and questions.

• Setup: How fast was the setup process? Did I need active intervention from the customer service teams, or was the guided setup process easy enough to handle everything on my own?
• Ease of use: Was it easy to get acquainted with the platform? Did I find all the features I needed where I expected them to be, or did I have to dig through tons of menus and sub-menus?
• UCaaS phone functionality: Did Nextiva offer the tools necessary to maintain communications across all of the channels I generally use?
• Business phone plans: How scalable and affordable are they? How well do they stack up against other competitors?
• Call center solutions: How versatile are the plans? Could I make a transition to Nextiva without disrupting my current workflows? Do the features justify the pricing?
• Automation: Does Nextiva offer the tools necessary to automate routine tasks and lessen the load on employees? How easy is it to do so?
• Analytics: What types of metrics could I track during tests and live trials? Was the information presented in a digestible manner?
• Customer service: How responsive and helpful were the customer service teams? What do other users have to say about them?
• Pricing: Does Nextiva’s offering bring more value for money compared to its competitors? Is its scalability affordable and gradual, or would I have to break the bank every time I wished to move to an upgraded package?